Tag Archives: Gopher mens basketball

Gophers guard Nolen could miss rest of season

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This from the “What more can go wrong?” department at the University of Minnesota, via the Star Tribune’s Myron Medcalf:

The Gophers’ worst fears were confirmed Sunday, when the team learned that starting point guard Al Nolen broke his right foot in Saturday’s win at Michigan.

During Monday’s Big Ten media teleconference, Tubby Smith said Nolen will have surgery Wednesday. The timetable for his return has not been determined. Smith said there’s no guarantee he will return this season.

“That’s a real blow to us,” Smith said.

Tubby has got that right. With Devoe Joseph transferring to Oregon, that leaves Chip Armelin and Maverick Ahanmisi running the point for the Gophers men’s basketball team.

Nolen – a senior – is as solid as they come. He’s considered a good manager and point man for the offense. He’s not flashy, but he’s just a solid, reliable player. Other than Trevor Mbakwe, he’s the toughest guy to replace on the team.

And for some Monday late morning links:

Devoe Joseph to leave Minnesota men’s basketball team

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Just a year ago, Devoe Joseph looked like the best player on the University of Minnesota men’s basketball team. And here we are on Tuesday, and Joseph has decided to leave the program.

That’s according to a report by the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Myron Medcalf.

It’s been an interesting year for Joseph, who was suspended earlier this season for an unspecified violation of team rules. He had since been reinstated, but he missed the team’s last game as well.

As a few of us like to say in the office, “What’s going on over there?” It does make you wonder. First, it was highly touted prospect Royce White‘s drawn-out decision to leave. Now, Joseph bolts.

They could be isolated incidents. Or maybe it’s just a case of head coach Tubby Smith running a tight ship, and some guys simply can’t handle it.

Either way, the Gophers have now lost two players who were supposed to be their stars for the next couple of years. With Al Nolen in the fold this year, they can handle losing Joseph for now. But eventually, when Nolen graduates, they will REALLY start to miss him.

Gophers depth to be tested, plus NFL picks

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The University of Minnesota men’s basketball team will have its depth tested at one key position for the forseeable future.

Al Nolen

The Minnesota men's basketball team will miss defensive stopper Al Nolen (0) for the next couple of weeks. Associated Press photo

Point guard Al Nolen will miss the next couple of weeks and maybe more with a foot injury. The 15th-ranked Gophers are already without one of their more talented players in combo guard Devoe Joseph, who is suspended indefinitely for violating unspecified team rules.

Minnesota’s next game is one of its last solid tests before the Big Ten season begins. The Gophers face Virginia in a Big Ten/ACC Challenge game at 6 p.m. Monday on ESPN2.

Week 12 NFL picks

I’m back to my old ways again, going 3-2 last week after a 1-4 week the week before. That puts my season record picking the spread at 24-21.

Here we go for Week 12:

  • Pittsburgh by 6 at Buffalo: Steelers
  • Kansas City by 1 at Seattle: Chiefs
  • Baltimore by 7 1/2 vs. Tampa Bay: Bucs
  • San Francisco by 2 1/2 at Arizona: 49ers
  • Philadelphia by 3 1/2 at Chicago: Eagles (As a Bears fan, this pick kills me, but I just think Michael Vick is more machine than man right now. The guy is unstoppable.)

Gophers are good. Vikings are not.

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Yesterday, I encouraged Minnesota Vikings fans on Facebook to turn their attention to the University of Minnesota men’s basketball team. Now, I ask GSB (Goethe Sports Blog) Nation to do the same.

What do you want first? Good news or bad news? Let’s go with the bad.

The Vikings are not a good football team. I would say up until two weeks ago, fans were holding out hope they would get things turned around. But after back-to-back clunkers against division rivals Chicago and Green Bay, it’s pretty safe to say at 3-7 that the season is over.

To make matters worse, those Vikings fans ready to run head coach Brad Childress out of the snow-filled Upper Midwest will have to tolerate his presiding over the team for at least one more week, according to this story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

NOTE: Scratch that above statement. The Vikings fired Childress and promoted Leslie Frazier to interim coach a couple hours after I wrote this. I’ll leave the rest of the post as is for now.

After watching the Vikings the last couple of weeks, I’ve noted how surprisingly deep the Vikings problems run:

  • Any discussion about the Vikings starts and ends with Childress. I’ll never understand how their best player – Adrian Peterson – is limited to just 15 touches in a game like he was Sunday. And in his last three games, he hasn’t reached 20 carries in any of them. Their second-best player on offense – Percy Harvin – had just two catches for 12 yards. Chilly has to find a way to get Peterson and Harvin more involved.
  • Brett Favre is brutal right now. And unlike any other team that has a struggling QB, I don’t think Vikings brass is capable of sitting Favre. I know it’s hard to believe for some people, but I think we’re at the point where Tarvaris Jackson gives you the best possible chance to win. In an NFL that’s built to encourage offense, Favre has 10 TD passes and 17 interceptions. Wanna take a guess how many QBs with enough pass attempts to qualify for QB rating have thrown more picks than TDs this season? Just five. And three of the other four have the difference between the two categories at two or less. Favre, by the way, has the worst QB rating of any player who has played in more than six games this season.
  • The Vikings corners and safeties are having a really difficult time right now. Chris Cook, of course, got plenty of attention Sunday, and not just for his struggles on the field. He got into an argument with defensive end Ray Edwards on the sidelines that that TV cameras caught, too.

I could go on and on, but let’s get to those beloved Gophers.

The Minnesota men’s basketball team won the Puerto Rico Tip-Off championship Sunday. In back-to-back games, they beat the No. 8-ranked team in the country – North Carolina – and a Final Four participant from a season ago.

Sunday’s game was pretty well-played, much moreso than Friday’s win over the Tar Heels. West Virginia had a guard that in the first half couldn’t miss in Casey Mitchell, who finished with 27 points. Yet the Gophers built a one-point lead at halftime, then kept a slim lead throughout much of the second half.

I’ve heard the naysayers point out that the Mountaineers aren’t even ranked and that the Tar Heels hardly looked like the eighth-best team in the country. I have two points for you:

  • Aren’t teams looking bad against the Gophers a byproduct of Tubby Smith’s defensive system?
  • The Gophers are doing all of this without their best player in guard Devoe Joseph, who is serving an indefinite suspension for violating team rules.

The Gophers look really deep right now. They have had depth the last few years. But that depth is now starting to really develop.

Al Nolen was superb on Sunday. Still like to see him cut down on taking long-range shots, but he’s pretty adept at doing anything else.

Trevor Mbakwe is a man among boys down in the post. And Blake Hoffarber was doing his thing as well, knocking down open 3s, including a big 3-pointer in the final minute to give the Gophers a lead on Sunday. And South Dakota’s own Colten Iverson had a great game Sunday too.

Although I don’t really need to tell North Dakota State fans any of this. Bison fans can see for themselves what the Gophers look like on Wednesday when NDSU travels to Williams Arena. Should be fun.

What would Wooden have done with Gophers?

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The sporting world lost what might be its most famous coach on Friday. Longtime UCLA men’s basketball coach John Wooden died at the age of 99.

One thing I was reminded of yesterday when reading his obituary story that moved on the AP wire was how Wooden nearly ended up coaching the University of Minnesota.

The bespectacled former high school teacher ended up at UCLA almost by accident. Wooden was awaiting a call from the University of Minnesota for its head coaching job and thought he had been passed over when it didn’t come. In the meantime, UCLA called, and he accepted the job in Los Angeles.

Minnesota officials called later that night, saying they couldn’t get through earlier because of a snowstorm, and offered him the job. Though Wooden wanted it more than the UCLA job, he told them he already had given UCLA his word and could not break it.
 

You wonder how different college basketball would be had he taken the Gophers job.

Gophers lose in first round, and may lose Tubby

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Xavier’s guard play proved to be too much for the University of Minnesota to handle during the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament Friday.

The Musketeers knocked out the 11th-seeded Gophers. And now there are reports that Minnesota head coach Tubby Smith may be on his way out.

There’s a report from Friday morning saying that Smith is close to becoming the next head coach at Auburn.

It’s tough to make too much out of this report right now. There have been reports of Smith leaving the Gophers ever since he got there three years ago. So for now, I’ll wait and see.

While I was gone …

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I’ve returned after a couple of days spent in the Twin Cities. Here’s a few of the things that happened since I last wrote:

  • The biggest story has got to be the University of Minnesota men’s basketball team pulling off back-to-back upsets of Purdue and Michigan State to advance to the championship game of the Big Ten tournament. The Gophers lost to Ohio State in the final, but they did just enough to get an at-large bid for the NCAAs. I was all over the map on them. Isaid they were done a couple weeks ago, stating that nothing short of a berth in the Big Ten final would get them an NCAA berth. And I said it wouldn’t happen. Well, I was right about needing to go to the title game. I was wrong about them being done.
  • The University of North Dakota men’s hockey team eliminated the Gophers on Sunday from the WCHA tournament in the first round. Sure didn’t think that series would go three games after what happened on Friday. But the two teams split the regular-season series 1-1-2.
  • LaDainian Tomlinson opted to sign with the New York Jets rather than join the Minnesota Vikings. Hard to blame him. Both teams lost in the conference championship game this year, and the Jets have a less solidified starting running back. I still anticipate Shonn Greene will start in NY, but LT should see more carries than he would have had he backed up Adrian Peterson.
  • Twins relief pitcher Joe Nathan will decide by the weekend if he’s going to need Tommy John surgery. Regardless of his decision, if he does pitch this year he won’t be the same Nathan.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this video from 12 Angry Mascots. It’s a parody of players making the league minimum in Major League Baseball, featuring Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Fernando Perez. It’s hilarious. Enjoy!

Did I say the Gophers were done?

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For the record, that headline is for the men’s basketball team. Thinks aren’t looking so hot for the men’s hockey team right now.

I said a couple weeks back that the Gophers had no shot of making the NCAA tournament and I was tired of all of the bubble talk. I’m not ready to say the Gophers are in yet, because I don’t think they are. But if they can pull off one more upset, who knows?

Minnesota will face the Robbie Hummel-less Purdue squad at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Big Ten tournament semifinals. This comes after the Gophers defeated Michigan State on Friday.

Minnesota had never beaten the Spartans during the Tubby Smith era. I’m pretty surprised they pulled that one off.

Gophers seniors sent out appropriately

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A trio of University of Minnesota men’s basketball players had one nice good-bye at Williams Arena on Sunday.

The Gophers’ three seniors – Lawrence Westbrook, Damian Johnson and Devron Bostick – played their final regular-season game at home on Sunday. And they got plenty of time on the court, notably Bostick, in a rout of Iowa.

The Hawkeyes are not a good team, so the win likely won’t do much to bolster any NCAA tournament hopes. But it was a nice sendoff for the three players and a fun event to go to.

It was pretty ugly from the get-go. It seemed the Gophers were hitting everything in the first half, and Johnson and Ralph Sampson III were giving the Hawkeyes fits on the other end of the court.

While Westbrook is a 1,000-point scorer for his career, I would contend that Johnson will be the player the program will miss most next year. He simply does all of the dirty work. He’s among the Big Ten Conference leaders in blocked shots and steals, and he’s a solid rebounder with a decent offensive game in the post.

Sunday’s win was nice, but the seniors will need a big run through this week’s Big Ten tournament to extend their seasons.

Gophers bubble is bursting fast

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The University of Minnesota men’s basketball team is quickly slipping out of contention for an NCAA tournament berth.

The Gophers have lost four of five and are in dire need of a quality win.

Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News says the Gophers are on the wrong side of the tournament bubble. He says "a remarkable rally" is necessary for the Gophers to have a chance of making the field of 65.

And now Minnesota will have to finish the season without Al Nolen, whose appeal of a season-ending suspension was denied by the NCAA.

That leaves the Gophers with Devoe Joseph at the point. Joseph bears more than just a striking resemblence to former Twins outfielder Carlos Gomez (see below).

Both players are incredibly talented. And both players commit maddening mistakes.

The season is crumbling fast, and the Gophers need a quality victory. The upset of Butler early in the season is really all they have.